Two-Minute Warning

A lone gunman has his sights set on a sell-out crowd at a championship football game. Captain Peter Holly leads the desperate fight to try and stop the maniac from picking people off at will. Perched high on top of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the gunman has his pick of the targets, the Mayor -the President - or merely the innocent? Either way he has to be stopped before all hell breaks loose.

Much like "Rollercoaster" a year later, Two-Minute Warning is wrongly lumped in with the disaster movie genre that flooded the 1970s, and just like Rollercoaster, Two-Minute Warning is an excellently taut thriller. The build up is paced to precision, all characters are introduced to us to give us something to associate with should things go very wrong. As this is happening we get little POV snippets of our killer, accompanied by Charles Fox's harshly impacting music, the killer is never seen but we feel the dread, the impending sense of murder is a constant presence.

Once we are at the game and the authorities are aware that a sniper is on the roof, the film shifts up a gear and lays on the suspense thick and heavy. Captain Holly (Charlton Heston in authoritative scene commanding form) is joined by the SWAT team, led by the cool and serious Sgt. Chris Button (John Cassavetes), whilst stadium security manager Sam McKeever (Martin Balsam) prays that disaster can be averted. Then the final third of the picture is a ripper of heart pounding stuff, a final third that rewards the viewers patience for having invested in the film and the key characters. Filling out the cast is Gena Rowlands, Jack Klugman (brilliant interplay with Mitch Ryan's priest), Beau Bridges, Walter Pidgeon and David Jansen.

Two-Minute Warning is a quality thriller that is sadly undervalued on the big IMDb site, go on, give it a go and you might just be pleasantly surprised. 7.5/10

Footnote: I should point out that my thoughts are on the original unedited cut of this film, I have never seen the watered down TV cut and have no plans to ever do so.have never seen the watered down TV cut and have no plans to ever do so.

The Seventies was the decade of the disaster film, but oddly enough Charlton Heston has never been credit for being King of the genre. We know Heston for his work in big budget spectacles like The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, but he's probably appeared in more disaster films than any other player.

Think about it, Heston during the seventies starred in Earthquake, Grey Lady Down, Skyjacked, Airport 75 and this film Two Minute Warning. All of them with a cast of well known players put in harm's way of a terrible act.

In this case it's some psycho freak with a rifle with telescopic sight who decides he's going to take out a whole load of people at a championship football game at the Los Angeles Coliseum. As in all disaster films the guessing is as to who among the cast will survive until the end of the movie.

We're not sure what the freak's motivation is, we do know that as the film opens for target practice he shoots down one of a pair of bicyclers driving past his motel. On some level I really don't care. The time for societal soul searching stops when the bullets begin to fire. After that it's only one thing, get him.

Charlton Heston is the police captain at the precinct where the Coliseum is located and John Cassavetes is the SWAT commander assigned to kill or capture. By the way it is also shown earlier Cassavetes SWAT team actually taking a suspect alive, so it's not that they are just looking for an opportunity to use the weapons.

Among the crowd at the football game there are some performances I especially liked, one of them being Beau Bridges as a young father out with his family for the game who spots the sniper and tries to warn the already informed police. Also Mitchell Ryan and Jack Klugman have some nice scenes as a priest who happens to be sitting next to a gambling addict who literally has his life riding on the point spread.

Two Minute Warning is not the best or worst of the Seventies disaster films. The cast is competent enough, a bunch of real professionals without a sour note among them.

Terror is real, an evil unto itself without reason and Two Minute Warning dramatically drives that point home.

"Two-Minute Warning" is one of those films that has a great premise--91,000 people gathered at the L.A. Coliseum are terrorized by an anonymous sniper during a championship football game--that is undone by one of the stupidest, most incompetent scripts in the history of motion pictures. Add to that the fact that the filmmakers spared every expense possible in telling the story, and you have a cheap, cheesy film that has to rank as one of the most disappointing films of the 1970's.

How incompetent is it? How about this for a setup: on Super Bowl Sunday (or Championship X as its referred to in the film), a sniper guns down a bicyclist from a nearby hotel, then escapes to the Coliseum, where he hides out in the belltower for the game to start, and evidently to start shooting. How does he get in? He simply breaks open a couple of locks, feeds the guard dogs some hamburger and climbs the ladder into the tower. There is no security, no police, no media, nobody around except one maintenance man the morning of the biggest football game of the year. Now, I was 13 in 1976 and I can tell you security was a concern even then. There is simply no possible way anyone could enter a facility that easily on such an important day.

Then there's the flimsy cast of characters: Charlton Heston as the police chief, John Cassavetes the SWAT leader, Martin Balsam the coliseum manager, Beau Bridges a father of two bratty boys, Pamela Bellwood as his wife, Marilyn Hassett as a college coed, David Janssen a car salesman and Gena Rowlands his girlfriend, Jack Klugman a sleazy gambler, Walter Pidgeon a sleazy pickpocket, and David Groh as a doctor who hits on the coed. There is no need to describe the characters any more because that is all there is to any of their personalities. These stereotypical cardboard cutouts are so one-dimensional they resemble nothing more than ducks in a shooting gallery, which in effect is all they are anyway.

And how about the ridiculous plot? When the sniper is finally seen and the police called, the wheels really start to turn, with the main conflict between the straight-laced captain and the flaky SWAT leader. The SWAT leader wants to put sharpshooters in the light towers without 91,000 people (or the sniper) noticing. The captain's plan? Evacuate the coliseum without the sniper noticing. They finally agree to man the light towers but to wait until the two-minute warning until any action is taken. Why? Because the sniper obviously wants to wait to see who wins the game before opening fire!

Honestly, the movie goes downhill from there. I can suspend disbelief up to a point. But this is the type of flick where a man can be shot and left dangling behind a thousand people and no one notices for five minutes. Or that the nosy father can see the sniper (he's evidently the only one in the stadium with eyes) and go to alert the police, but tell his wife and kids to stay in their seats (in the line of fire) so he can find them later. Or that the maintenance man can be knocked off a forty-foot ladder in full view of the crowd and not be seen by anyone but the policemen. Or that-- Well, you get the idea.

Then there's the annoying fact that the filmmakers were obviously too cheap to pay the NFL for use of their football uniforms and the Super Bowl logo, so we have the dubiously named "Championship X" between Los Angeles and Baltimore, but not the Rams and the Colts, as they were known back then. (Since 1977's "Black Sunday," which was also set partially at the Super Bowl, actually used the name "Super Bowl" and real teams, I have to believe money and not the NFL were behind the decision not to use the name.) And instead of paying for a top-notch recording star to sing the National Anthem, here we get Merv Griffin(!) warbling the anthem in one of the most laughable scenes in modern movie history.

And let's not even discuss the acting; suffice it to say that a lot of talented actors are wasted in roles that they took obviously to pay the bills until something better came along. And the direction is just pitiful. Can I nominate Larry Peerce (whose filmography includes such classic stinkers as "A Separate Peace," "The Sporting Club," "Why Would I Lie," and "Wired," the John Belushi biopic that ruined the careers of everybody involved) as second worst director of all time, right behind Ed Wood? In two hours he establishes no mood, no style, no urgency and no suspense whatsoever. And the miserable script by Ed Hume deserves placement alongside Eric Roth's "The Concorde--Airport '79" as the single worst piece of film writing of all time.

Incidentally, when NBC bought broadcasting rights to "Two Minute Warning," it must have been sight unseen because by the time they cut the violence and profanity out, only about 80 of 115 minutes remained, so they reshot the film, adding an hour of new footage in which the sniper went from an anonymous threat to a decoy for a jewelry heist next door, which simply made things even more ludicrous. After it's initial three-hour showing, the film was cut back to two hours with most of the new footage left intact, but only about 30 original minutes left, mostly with Chuck Heston and Cassavetes as the only original cast members left with any screen time. However, all of the names were left in the opening credits, even though Hassett and Pidgeon were completely cut out of the film and the other supporting characters reduced to cameos. Which should serve as a further indicator of how bad this film really is.

So, consider yourself warned and proceed at your own risk. And let's depart with this classic exchange of dialog: Coed (to doctor): Are you a doctor? Doctor (surprised): Yes, I am. How did you know? Coed: Dirty shoes. Nice, clean hands. Only a doctor would have hands that clean. Or another: Coed: I hate football. Doctor: I do, too. Coed: Well, then why did you come? Doctor: To meet you! Coed giggles uncontrollably. Viewer runs screaming from room. * (out of *****)

Thrilling and entertaining disaster movie but full clichés and stereotypes with enjoyable performances from Charlton Heston and John Cassavetes . This catastrophe movie blends action , intrigue , disaster spectacle, suspense and emotional byplay . ¨Two-minute warning¨ was a successful film that grossed at box office . A psychotic sniper wielding a rifle with telescopic sight plans a massacre during a major championship game . The two protagonists , the police Captain Peter Holly (Charlton Heston) and SWAT commander Sergeant Button (John Cassavetes), learn of the plot and spend most of their time devising various ways for avoid to psychopath sniper carries out his aims : a massive killing spree in Los Angeles football stadium filled to capacity . As our heroes get stuck in the stadium before it blows up and when slaughter takes place they go into action ; as they pay tribute to policemen . There takes place a struggle between two forces , the cops and the sinister assassin and ultimately erupts when the crowd turns almost effortlessly and devours itself in a climax of panic .

Exciting film that contains noisy action , unsettling scenes , thrills , emotion and turns out to be pretty entertaining . This formula suspense movie belongs to catastrophe genre of the 70s , being the undisputed king , ¨The towering inferno¨ along with ¨Earthquake¨ , ¨Roller coaster¨ and many others ; this formula disaster movie was widely developed by Irwin Allen , previously winner of numerous Oscars for ¨Poseidon¨ until the failures as ¨Beyond Poseidon¨, ¨Swarm¨ and ¨When the time ran out¨ . ¨Two-minute warning¨ results to be an intriguing and suspenseful film , there was a later version released that had footage not shown in theaters , in the original theatrical version, the sniper's motives were not known. In the later television version, it was revealed that the attack was done to cover an art robbery next door . Filmed at the height of the disaster genre from the 7os , this entry in the spectacular series profits of a strong acting by starring trio Charlton Heston , John Cassavetes and Martin Balsam . Succeeds in combining various talented actors , an all star cast came together that tie for film's top casting honors ; furthermore a top-notch secondary casting such as Gina Rowlands, Beau Bridges , Jack Klugman , Marilyn Hasset , Pamela Bellwood , Mitch Ryan , Brock Peters, David Janssen and Walter Pidgeon as a pickpocket who formerly co-starred in 'Harry in Your Pocket' , a film about pickpocket s. This edgy , paranoid film was deemed too violent to show intact on broadcast television, so they re-wrote the story and added a heist element , the re-written material minimized both the main storyline and the subplots . Colorful and gripping photography in Panavision by Gerard Hirschfeld , including persistent high-angle shots , subjective camera-work and use of long lenses . Intriguing and atmospheric score by Charles Fox . This big-budgeted disaster movie was professionally though coldly directed by Larry Peerce , an usual TV movies director . Rating : Good and entertaining , it's a fairly watchable disaster movie.

A determined sniper is discovered by a TV crew in a scoreboard tower at a football game and how will police deal with the situation. The placement of S.W.A.T. sharpshooters on the light towers to take out the gunman would be the logical response since sneaking up on the guy might provoke him to shoot into the crowd.

I find this film to be a bit slow as stock characters are introduced and placed at the game. Once the sniper takes his position and becomes a threat, this film turns exciting, gritty and violent as shots are exchanged.

The fact that the shooter is faceless adds to the scariness of the situation. Who is this guy and what is his major malfunction?

The recent events in the Washington D.C. area add an air of reality to the movie. Previously no one would have believed that people were capable of such an ugly crime.

"Two-Minute Warning", aside from the formula melodrama, is a creepy thriller that might be a little too real now.